Through the Door
by lurkisblurkis
Summary: Jill and Eustace make a discovery during their last term at Experiment House. -Repost.-


Author's note: The original title was "Through the Gate," but going back to read The Silver Chair again I discovered that it was, in fact, a door through which Jill and Eustace got to Narnia, not a gate. Hence the change.

Through The Door

by lurkisblurkis

--

"I say, Pole!"

Jill stopped halfway into what she had been about to do and turned around. Eustace was running up from behind the gym.

"Hullo, Scrubb," she said when he was within earshot. "Been at The Door, have you?"

Eustace nodded quickly, but it was hard to tell, he was panting so hard. "What're you doing?" he managed breathlessly as Jill reached back to the task before her.

"Pruning roses," she replied.

Eustace wrinkled his nose. "Doesn't sound like much fun."

Jill ignored him, carefully snipping the leaf off a wayward branch with her shears.

"Say, Pole—d'you have a moment?" asked Eustace presently.

"I think so. Here, hold this one out while I get back at the stem—"

"Hang it all, I don't want to prune flowers!" protested Eustace desperately as he tried to fend off the thorny branch that was being thrust at him. "Pole!"

"In a tick," came her voice, distant and slightly muffled, from within the rosebush.

"Bother," muttered Eustace. But he did resign himself gingerly to holding the rose branch bent back a few feet from its source, whilst Jill did her work.

A few seconds passed in silence; then—"Pole! Are you finished?"

"There: all done." Jill stepped back from the roses. There were a few fresh pink scratches on her face, but she rubbed at them once with the back of her hand and then seemed not to notice them anymore. She turned on her heel to face Eustace. "So, what is it, Scrubb?"

Eustace shoved his hands into his pockets impatiently. "I thought you might want to come see what's over at The Door. It's a queer sight, if nothing else."

Jill bent carefully to set her shears on the ground, and her eyes were filled with curiosity. "What is it?" she repeated as she stood up and brushed off her skirt.

--

"I'm not exactly sure," he answered when they were walking briskly along around the corner of the gym. There was no one else about: the area behind the gym was not a place where most boys and girls at the school liked to spend their afternoons. "Been so busy with things this term that I hadn't had a chance to look at it for weeks now, but it was there when I came back this afternoon; which is an odd thing, understand, because The Door's been white as wallpaper ever since they replaced it and put the paint on." He stole a glance at Jill. "Have you been back there?"

"No," replied Jill truthfully. "I don't think I've been back there at all yet this year. What _is _it, Scrubb, tell me, I'm dying of the suspense."

"No, wait till we get there," insisted Eustace. Then a strange look crossed his face and he said, "It's…it's not exactly something one describes very easily."

Jill wrapped her cardigan closer around her in the early spring breeze. "Things have been so very different since Headmistress Wayne came on board," she remarked vehemently. "I'd thought even Patel was an improvement over…over, well, _That _Headmistress—but this time nearly _everybody's_ been of a decent sort now that she's taken charge. Almost makes Experiment House a friendly name, doesn't it?"

"No more crying behind the gym," said Eustace agreeably. "And no more bullies, either. No more coming back here to feel better and—and to think about ever getting through again."

Jill nodded without saying anything.

"Do you, ever?" asked Eustace quietly, looking at her. "Because I do."

"Sometimes," she confessed.

Eustace hmphed, and then looked brightly ahead, shielding his eyes from the high afternoon sun. "Well, it's our last year at this school. No more Door."

"Yes…no more Door," agreed Jill; and then she fell silent.

--

When they got there, it first looked just as Jill would have imagined it. The boards were still white, and the hinge was still new and shining, even though it had been replaced nearly three years ago when the last Door was destroyed. There was a big, shiny, brass lock gleaming on the latch: a little wooden card covered with chip marks that hung loosely from it read "NO PASSING BEYOND THIS POINT."

"But we did pass," murmured Jill to herself. She glanced over at Eustace. "What's different, then?" she asked aloud.

Eustace gave her another odd look. "That's what I didn't see, too, at first," he admitted—though Jill couldn't have for the world said what he was admitting too. He stepped forward and beckoned her to follow. "But look, here," he said, pointing at the latch up close.

Jill stepped carefully through the mass of heather and weeds that surrounded The Door and looked where Eustace was pointing. "I don't see anything," she said, puzzled.

Eustace gave a huff of exasperation and shoved his hands into his pockets again. "Well, I don't see what you're going on about," said Jill irritably. "I can't make out whatever it is and it isn't _my _fault. Do please make sense, Scrubb," she demanded, because by now she was getting a little cross.

"All right!" Eustace threw his hands up out of his pockets. "Look here, Jill," he began, crouching down so as to be at eye level with her where she was bending to examine the latch. "D'you remember the day when Aslan and Caspian and you and I destroyed this part of the wall."

"Of course I do."

"And that dusty old Door was ruined…well, we were surprised, weren't we, because it had been locked that day, and we weren't supposed to be able to go through?"

"Yes, I follow you…"

"Well, _look!_" Eustace put his hand on the lock. "If you try to open it…Look, Pole, and really _want _to go through…"

Jill gave a little short gasp: for the white painted wood surrounding the lock and latch was suddenly crimson red, and the latch was lifted up. The door swung smoothly and slowly on its bright oiled hinge and pushed gently open into the wild and rumpled heather beyond.

"It opens," Eustace whispered.

"By Jove," Jill said in a hollow, quiet voice. "So it does." She reached out a finger to touch the red paint—then she pulled back, changed her mind, and went instead for the little card hanging from the lock that read "NO PASSING BEYOND THIS POINT". On the back of the card, written in small, plain letters, it said, simply, "Pass."

There was a tiny drawing of the outline of a lion's head below it.

Eustace straightened up and whistled. "I missed that, last time," he said in surprise, gesturing to the card. "I didn't know it was there before."

"It wasn't," murmured Jill, letting the card drop.

For a few moments neither of them moved. Then Eustace drew a breath and spoke up, "Well, shall we, then?" And Jill got to her feet and said, "Very well, of course," and they looked at each other and then took each other's hand—because, as Eustace said, very practically, "You never know if Narnia lies ahead and we're going to be rushed into it." Then they each took a deep breath and stepped through The Door.

"Roses!" exclaimed Jill delightedly at once, and she dropped Eustace's hand and rushed forward.

They had not gone into Narnia; they were still standing among the heather and weeds, but on the other side of The Door, of course; and Jill was right: there was a perfectly lovely bush of cheerful pink roses growing right up amongst the tangled brush, next to the wall to their left. "How happy they look!" and Jill buried her face directly into the middle of their fragrant blooms.

"I do think this a bit off," Eustace mumbled, looking around—but Jill grabbed his arm and pulled him down, saying ecstatically, "Smell the roses, Scrubb! They're ten times nicer than any that ever grew on _That _side of The Door!" He obeyed reluctantly, and was obliged to admit that what Jill said was true, despite that he hadn't, he said, done much rose-smelling on his own before to measure this against.

Eustace had a fresh scratch on his face from a thorn when he sat back, but oddly enough he didn't seem to notice it much.

--

"Though I can't say that I would have looked for rose bushes on the other side; still, you're right about one thing, and it's that no one other than Aslan could have opened that door for us."

They were standing in the hall between classes now. Eustace had a pile of books shoved under his arm, and Jill was pulling her sleeves into a new sweater. Because the hallway was full of other boys and girls going to and from classes, the friends were speaking in quiet voices, but not too quiet.

"Of course, that's certain," agreed Jill, settling the sweater over her shoulders. "But I think if I had wanted something other than roses, they might have been on the other side, too. What was it that you wanted?"

"Oh, it was on the other side, too," answered Eustace vaguely with a wave of his hand. "If Aslan really controls both sides, I suppose—hey, now, that's an odd thought, isn't it? I suppose he could give us anything we really wanted."

"I think he does," Jill said firmly. "Or…did, at that rate. Oh, dear." Her face fell. "We shan't be coming back to The Door after this term, shall we, Scrubb?"

"That _does _dampen the spirits," Eustace agreed unhappily. "I can't help but wonder whether another pair of kids will find their way to The Door. Makes you squirm to imagine other friends sitting back behind that gym like we used to, eh?"

"It does," Jill said with a nod.

There was a silence. The stream of boys and girls in the hallway was getting thinner now, as the next class was to begin shortly.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow, then," said Jill just as the bell rang shrilly. And—"Oh! Scrubb!" She stopped walking and turned to look back at him. "You did lock The Door when we came back, didn't you?"

"Yes," Eustace said. "But I don't think somehow that _my _locking it makes any difference, come to think of it."

Jill shrugged. "Maybe not. See you tomorrow, then."

"I'll be there."

-end-


End file.
